


For The Next Ten Minutes

by heyjupiter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, M/M, Minor Bruce Banner/Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Science Boyfriends, Science Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 11:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14519850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter
Summary: It's been two years since Bruce and Tony have seen each other. Fortunately, they’ve met a time wizard who can give them a chance to catch up before all hell breaks loose.





	For The Next Ten Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers for Infinity War!
> 
> Thanks to tarajuku for cheerleading! 
> 
> Title is from the song "The Next Ten Minutes" from _The Last Five Years_.

Bruce paced around what he'd been told was Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, trying to force his brain to process all the new information he'd taken in, trying his best to participate in the conversation at hand. He felt sluggish, like his brain was trapped in Jello. But he had to think--Thanos was coming to Earth, and he didn't know what had happened to Thor and Valkyrie, and Bruce was back on Earth, and Tony was here, and magic was real, and _Thanos was coming to Earth._

Bruce's mind didn't remember his time as Hulk, but his body did. He was still adjusting to the physical sensations of being puny Banner, and hadn't realized how much he'd missed Earth's gravity. Asgard and the ships (multiple! He'd been on multiple spaceships! He'd flown one!) he'd been on had had a reasonable simulacrum of Earth's gravity--better than anything NASA had achieved, he was sure--but now that he was back on Earth, he realized what had been missing. He tried to focus on the sensation of gravity, hoping it would ground his wandering mind.

And then the floor dropped out from under him. He flailed his arms for a moment before processing that his body was held up by some kind of large glowing green bubble. Tony was suspended next to him, looking very distressed.

"This isn't productive," Doctor Strange said dismissively. "You two have an hour to get this all out of your system, and then we have work to do."

"What? No, we do not have an hour to spare," Bruce said. "Thanos is coming--he--we have to do something!"

"This hour will exist, shall we say, out of time," Strange intoned. "When the bubble breaks you'll return to this exact moment in time, and I hope you'll be better prepared to help us defend Earth instead of just...gazing at each other." 

"Wait, if you can freeze time, couldn't we just--" Tony started.

"The conditions of this spell are very particular. One hour, for you two only," Strange said, punctuated with a complicated hand gesture. The bubble became opaque, and Strange and the rest of his Sanctum disappeared from sight. 

"Can you believe this guy?" Tony said, with the kind of melodramatic eyeroll Bruce had missed.

"Yeah," Bruce mumbled. "I mean I wasn't...gazing at you."

"You weren't? Is it because I'm older now? Do you think I should get Botox, after we save the world?" Tony patted his face lightly.

"No, Tony, I don't...I don't think you should get Botox." Bruce slouched against the edge of the bubble and found that it would support his weight. 

Tony tapped the bubble. "Do you think he's watching us? Is this like a two-way mirror? Or some kind of...magical fish tank? Are we gonna run out of air?"

"I don't think so. I think he's trying to find a way to stop Thanos," Bruce said firmly. Recent events had altered his standards for privacy such that he wouldn't really mind if Strange were watching them, although he truly did believe that Strange had better things to do at this moment. Or that this moment didn't exist for Strange? The distinction was beyond his understanding.

If Bruce were a person who had any expectation of life being fair, he would have thought it was extremely unfair that he'd just gotten back from trying to save one world from Hela only to discover that now the entire universe needed saving.

Tony pushed up his sleeve and looked down at his fancy watch. "Hmm. This is supposed to connect to radio signals and keep atomic time, but...it's stopped. So either Strange broke my watch...which I doubt because it's extremely durable StarkTech...or...we're in a time-stopped bubble." 

"It's not like it's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to us," Bruce said.

"I guess it's not," Tony said. He ran a hand over his forehead and said, "So no on Botox, huh?"

"No on Botox," Bruce agreed, although Tony _did_ actually look a little older than Bruce remembered. It was mostly around the eyes that it showed. But why shouldn't he? They should all look a thousand years old after what they'd been through.

"Well, I appreciate that, but maybe I'll get a second opinion from Pepper. She's going to be so mad about all of this, maybe she'll be more forgiving if I can't move my eyebrows."

"I'm not sure that's going to be her main issue," Bruce offered.

"As much as it pains me to admit, you're probably right," Tony said. "God, Bruce, we missed you so much. I missed you so much."

"I...yeah."

"You...what?" Tony asked, his tone joking-but-not-quite. Bruce remembered this tone, knew he had to tread carefully, had to dig the right words out of his Jello brain to keep from hurting Tony's feelings. He rubbed his eyes with his hands.

"Look, the truth is, I don't remember most of the time I've been gone," Bruce admitted. "Thor filled me in a little bit, he said it's been like two years since...since everything with Ultron, but I don't--that all feels like it was a few weeks ago, maybe? A month? But I--of course I missed you, and Pepper. And--and everyone."

"But mostly me and Pepper, right?"

Bruce smiled. "Mostly you and Pepper."

Tony smiled back, and then he sat down on the floor of the bubble. "Good," he said. "Now why don't you come here so we can catch up, like the good doctor suggested?" 

"Okay," Bruce said, knowing it was generally easier to go along with Tony's ideas. The bubble was large enough to hold them both but it wasn't especially roomy, and it was a little awkward for him to manage. He carefully slid down the side of the bubble he'd been leaning on and ended up curling his head on Tony's lap. Tony immediately began stroking Bruce's hair. It felt even better than the hug they'd shared in Central Park, the first moment when Bruce had realized he was really back home.

"Pepper's going to say you need a haircut, but you shouldn't listen to her," Tony murmured.

"Okay," Bruce agreed. "So...what did I miss here on Earth? Thor said he hadn't heard anything."

"Oh…" Tony considered. "I'm not sure an hour is enough to get into it, actually."

"I'll take a few bullet points."

"Well, you know, once I get started, I'd hate to get cut off in the middle...how long have we been in here, anyway?"

"No idea."

"FRIDAY?" he asked.

"Is today Friday?" Bruce asked, not that it really mattered what day of the week it was. Although he suspected Thanos would ruin a lot of weekend plans.

"No, it's Thursday, I was trying to ask FRIDAY what time it is."

"Is this like Who's on First?"

"No, she's like JARVIS."

Bruce tried to put together the pieces, still feeling hopelessly behind. He wasn't used to feeling so stupid. "Oh, FRIDAY is your new AI?" 

"Yeah. But I don't think she made it into the bubble." Tony tapped the side of the bubble for emphasis. "This is some real dramatic Wizard of Oz stuff, am I right?"

"You're not wrong," Bruce said. He wondered what it would be like to visit Stark Tower without JARVIS.

"Doctor Strange. You think he's even a real doctor?" Tony asked. 

"He is, actually, or he used to be. I...talked to him a little bit, before. I think he means well." Bruce had literally crashed in through Strange's window and been received more charitably than he could have expected. Strange had believed him about Thanos; Strange had taken him to Tony. He _did_ seem to have a bit of a dramatic streak...but of course, so did Tony. Maybe that was why Tony didn't seem to like Strange; they were too similar.

"We'd better hope he does," Tony muttered darkly. 

It seemed to Bruce that the two men had never met before, but then, despite the stated objective of this bubble, Bruce still had no idea what all had happened on Earth while he'd been away. He had the sense that Tony didn't want to talk about it, but he decided to try again.

"So you haven't met him before? Doctor Strange, I mean?"

"Never heard of him," Tony said. "I've been busy with the real world."

"Okay, like...what, though? Ultron didn't come back, did he?"

"No, I'm pretty sure we took care of that for good."

Bruce waited to see if Tony would say more. When he didn't, Bruce twisted and tentatively tapped at the glowing arc reactor on Tony's chest. "Hey. What happened here? Are you okay, Tony?"

Tony took his hand out of Bruce's hair for a moment and placed it over the glowing arc reactor. "Oh, this old thing?"

"Yeah. Your heart…?"

"Was _broken_ when you ran away to _space_ without sending so much as a _postcard_ for _years_ ," Tony said, a little too lightly.

Bruce winced. It was still so hard for him to process the missing _years_ in his memory. "I didn't--I'm sorry, Tony, I didn't mean for--I didn't mean to stay away so long. I just needed…"

"What did you need, Bruce? What did you need that we couldn't give you here on earth?"

Suddenly, Bruce laughed. Of course Tony thought it was about him somehow. Bruce laughed so hard he couldn't speak. He laughed so hard it started to blur into tears. Tony squeezed his shoulders. 

"Bruce?"

"It's just," Bruce said, in between panting breaths. "It's just kind of funny, if you think about it. I wanted to _not_ be the Hulk for a while, and instead I was _only_ the Hulk."

"That's _not_ funny," Tony said sharply.

"No, maybe not so much," Bruce said, reining in his hysteria.

"You were really the Hulk? That whole time? Is that possible?"

"As far as I can tell," Bruce said. "Thor came and found me, and I--well, he helped me come back. As Banner, I mean. It's been…" he trailed off. He didn't even know how it had been. Bruce had always gotten along with Thor well enough, and he certainly respected him more than ever after the last few weeks, but...Thor didn't really understand what it had meant to Bruce, to be stuck as Hulk for all that time. 

"God, Bruce, I had no idea, I thought you--I don't know. I never imagined...I would have…I'm sorry," Tony managed to say, with some difficulty. 

For a moment, Bruce let himself imagine a world where Tony and Pepper had been the ones to find him. Where someone had actually gone looking for him, instead of finding him by mistake the way Thor had. Bruce hoped Tony wouldn't ask any follow-up questions at the moment, Thor had told Bruce that he should be proud of that Hulk had been the greatest Champion Sakaar had ever seen (aside from Thor himself), but it still made Bruce feel sick to think about it.

"It's not your fault," Bruce said. "But don't think I didn't notice that you didn't answer my question. Are you okay? Physically?"

"...Yes. The shrapnel's out of my heart for good. The arc reactor is just to help power my suits. It works better this way."

"Oh." Bruce thought about that for a moment. It had never been lost on him that he and Tony were the only Avengers who'd become what they were by experimenting on _themselves_ , though their circumstances were obviously different. Apparently Tony was doubling down on that, while Bruce's experiment seemed to be developing a new life of its own. 

"Well, I'm glad you're okay," Bruce said.

"Yeah, I guess I am okay, actually. Pepper said she'd marry me."

"Oh! Oh, Tony, that's...congratulations," Bruce said. Of course he was happy for them. Of course he'd known that their little trio wouldn't last forever.

"Yeah. We haven't really made any plans, there's been...some...complications." 

"Complications?"

"Seriously, we need a bigger time bubble for all of that, but really, things are...fine. Good, now that you're back. We really did miss you. And I mean, we couldn't get married without my best man."

"Best man?"

"You, Banner."

"I don't know, I don't--shouldn't it be Rhodey?"

"Rhodey's going to officiate."

"I thought you hadn't made plans yet."

"We--we announced it earlier than we meant to, because we had to--well, it's another long story, but yes, we did also talk to Rhodey. Obviously. But we wanted you to be there. We'll figure everything else out later, but--we really want you to be there." Tony sounded almost hesitant, pleading even.

"Okay. Then I--I would be honored."

Tony beamed, then bent down and kissed Bruce. Bruce awkwardly rolled off Tony's lap, sputtering in surprise.

"Tony, I thought--"

"I thought you--" Tony started at the same time.

"I thought you were getting married," Bruce finished. "I don't want to--to get in the way."

"I thought you said you wanted to be with us," Tony said. He swept out his hand in a vague gesture.

"Pepper's not here, there's no 'us.'"

"If she were here, she would want this," Tony said confidently. "As long as you do. You know we have an arrangement. We didn't change it just because you ran off to space."

"It's been such a long time," Bruce said. "I feel like I've missed so much--and you haven't told me any of it."

"That's not true. I told you everything that matters," Tony said. Bruce closed his eyes for a moment and Tony added, "Banner, don't overthink this."

"I'm not _over_ thinking. I'm just thinking." Bruce thought about how much he'd missed by trying to escape, by trying to spare others. He thought about how Thanos was coming to Earth and everyone was probably going to die anyway. 

"Fine, but I don't think we have much time left, and you're wasting it with all this thinking," Tony said, impatiently tapping the side of the bubble. 

Bruce said, "I ruined most of the clothes you left on the Quinjet. Or Hulk did."

" _That's_ what you're thinking about right now?"

"It just came to mind," Bruce said, tugging at the sleeve of his borrowed blazer. 

"We'll get you some new clothes," Tony said. "Some that fit."

"Okay. That sounds good," Bruce said, and then he leaned forward and kissed Tony. Tony wrapped his arms around Bruce's neck and responded enthusiastically. They were still locked together when the green bubble dissolved, dropping them a foot down to the floor of Strange's Sanctum in an awkward tangle.

Doctor Strange rolled his eyes. "I take it you two are all caught up now?"

Bruce felt himself blush. Tony just winked and said, breezily, "We've still got some details to sort out but I think we're on the same page for the big picture."

"Good, because Thanos is coming," Strange said. "So, to recap…"

Bruce listened intently. He still wasn't sure what he could do in the face of Thanos, but he was grateful not to have to do it alone.


End file.
